The present invention relates to computerized telephone call centers and in particular to a computerized gateway that interconnects call center interactive voice response platforms with customer host computing applications.
A typical call center includes a number of agents who field inbound telephone calls and place outbound telephone calls. The agent may place outbound sales calls or field inbound calls (such as 800 numbers) from callers. A third party typically operates a call center for a customer. The customer may link certain skilled employees into the call center""s communications channels as call center agents, in addition to other agents provided by the third party that operates the call center. Customers also frequently make their business record computing systems, or customer host computing systems, available to the call center and its agents as a means of expediting calls.
In a conventional call center, before a call reaches an agent, the call may first be directed into an interactive voice response (IVR) platform having an IVR application. Numerous types of IVR platforms and IVR applications are known in the prior art. The IVR application associated with the IVR platform queries the caller for information pertinent to the call. Information retrieved from the caller may be forwarded to the call center agent as an aid for expediting the caller""s request, e.g., that the caller wishes to discuss an upcoming audit with a call center agent having tax auditing skills. Information retrieved from the caller may also be forwarded to the customer host computing system, and the reply received from the customer host computing system may be made available to the call center agent, e.g., the caller provides a taxpayer identification number, and the host computing system uses the taxpayer identification number to retrieve the caller""s tax return for a previous year, and the IVR application forwards the tax return to a call center agent along with the call.
In some instances, the information retrieved from the host computing system by the IVR application may satisfactorily meet the customer""s needs, and no action by a call center agent will be required, e.g., the customer provides a taxpayer identification number, and the host computing system responds with the date that the taxpayer""s refind was mailed along with the refund amount. Thus, the IVR application efficiently responds to many customer requests without the necessity for intervention by an actual call center agent.
The IVR platform and the IVR application may execute a variety of specific applications for calls received in the call center. Third party telecommunications service providers typically offer a variety of network-based call center services to their customers. These services comprise a broad range of features for processing calls in the call center and for routing calls to one or more of the customer""s own computing centers. Call centers having an IVR platform typically operate at lower cost than call centers staffed with agents performing tasks that could be performed by an IVR application communicating with a customer host computing system.
In a conventional IVR-configured call center, the IVR platform communicates with a customer host computing system through dedicated circuits or a router-based or a switch-based network that requires the IVR application to have knowledge of both the customer host computing system, including its software, hardware, and operating system, and the customer host computing system""s network address. Because the IVR application must know so much information about the customer host computing system, deploying new applications requiring IVR platform-to-host computing system communications has been difficult. In addition to deploying new applications, these same difficulties have also arisen with mere updates to existing IVR platforms and customer host computing systems. Thus, in a conventional IVR-configured call center, connecting the customer host computing system to the IVR platform has been expensive and technically cumbersome.
FIG. 1 illustrates a prior art IVR-configured call center 112 implemented by the applicant for the Missouri Department of Revenue that overcomes some of the above limitations in an extremely limited context. The IVR-configured call center 112 has been designed to interface a specific type of IVR platform to a specific customer host computing system containing a specific application for handling the tax records of Missouri taxpayers. In the IVR-configured call center 112, an enhanced call router (ECR) 102 having an enhanced routing services (ERS) application 103 intercedes on behalf of call center agents 111 and receives calls from callers 100 via a public switched telephone network (PSTN) 101. The ECR 102 and the ERS 103 are a well known type of IVR platform and IVR application, respectively, and process calls received from callers in the manner described above.
While processing a call, the ERS 103 may require information stored in the customer""s host computing system. In the specific prior art system shown in FIG. 1, the customer host computer is an IBM Multiple Virtual Storage (MVS) mainframe computer 109 containing a Missouri Department of Revenue tax application 110. Accordingly, the ERS 103 constructs a query for ultimate delivery to and processing by the Missouri Department of Revenue tax application 110.
As discussed above, in conventional IVR-configured call centers, the IVR application had to know how to format a query for the customer host computing system and the customer host application. However, in the IVR-configured call center 112, a host connect gateway 105 provides an interface between the ECR 102, a specific type of IVR, and the IBM MVS mainframe computer 109, a specific type of customer host computing system. The host connect gateway 105 provides an ECR front-end interface 106 that receives queries from the ERS 103 in an ERS-specific format via an Ethernet wide area network (WAN) 104. The ECR front-end interface 106 then provides each query to a Missouri Department of Revenue back-end interface 107 that formats the query for both the IBM MVS mainframe computer 109 and the Missouri Department of Revenue tax application 110 and sends the query over a token ring connection 108 to the IBM MVS mainframe computer 109.
The Missouri Department of Revenue tax application 110 processes the query and formats a reply. The IBM MVS mainframe computer 109 sends the reply over the token ring connection 108 to the Missouri Department of Revenue back-end interface 107. The Missouri Department of Revenue back-end interface 107 provides the reply to the ECR front-end interface 106. The ECR front-end interface 106 processes the reply into an ERS format. The ECR front-end interface 106 then sends the re-formatted reply to the ECR 102 over the Ethernet WAN 104.
The IVR-configured call center 112 overcomes the limitations discussed above only for connections between a specific IVR, the ECR 102, a specific IVR application, the ERS 103, a specific computing system, the IBM MVS mainframe computer 109, and a specific application, the Missouri Department of Revenue tax application 110. The IVR-configured call center 112 has not been designed to interface with computing systems other than the IBM MVS mainframe computer 109 or with applications other than the Missouri Department of Revenue tax application 110. The IVR-configured call center 112 also does not interface with IVRs other than the ECR 102 or with IVR applications other than the ERS 103. Moreover, the IVR-configured call center 112 has no facility for modifying either the Missouri Department of Revenue back-end interface 107 or the ECR front-end interface 106. The host connect gateway 105 has not been designed to connect multiple ECRs 102 with multiple IBM MVS mainframe computers 109, let alone to connect multiple IVR platforms with multiple customer host computing systems. In addition, the host connect gateway 105 cannot sustain a high throughput of queries and replies. In essence, the IVR-configured call center 112 provides only a slight improvement over conventional call centers in which the IVR application contains precise knowledge regarding the format required by the customer host computer and customer host computer application.
The invention provides a customer host connect gateway that interfaces any Intelligent Voice Response (IVR) platform with any customer host computing system. The customer host connect gateway enables an IVR application to perform transactions with a customer host computing application while processing a customer call in a call center. The customer host connect gateway satisfies all interoperability requirements, freeing IVR applications from any necessity for knowing specific hardware or software information related to a customer host computer, or a customer host computer application, and from the need for knowing the network address of the customer host computing system. The customer host connect gateway also interfaces multiple IVR platforms with multiple customer host computing systems in the same call center.
The customer host connect gateway includes a separate application for communicating with each customer host computing system. The IVR platform issues a transaction to a customer host computer by sending a message to the customer host connect gateway. A customer-specific application on the customer host connect gateway identifies the format required for the customer host transaction based upon the customer host computing system and the customer host computing application. The customer host connect gateway also determines the particular connectivity protocols necessary for communicating with the customer host computer and the network address for the customer host computing system. The customer host connect gateway additionally provides a user interface that facilitates the rapid building and testing of new applications for the customer host connect gateway.